He returned to his bench, muttering. Humans and PanSpechi - impossible creatures. Except for McKie. Now, there was a human who occasionally achieved analytic rapport with sentients capable of higher logic. Well . . . every species had its exceptions to the norm.
If you say, "I understand." what have you done? You have made a value judgment.
By an effort of communication which he still did not completely understand, McKie had talked the Caleban into opening the Beachball's external port. This permitted a bath of spray-washed air to flow into the place where McKie sat. It also did one other thing: It allowed a crew of watchers outside to hold eye contact with him. He had just about given up hoping Abnethe would rise to the bait. There would have to be another solution. Visual contact with watchers also permitted a longer spacing between Taprisiot guard contacts. He found the new spacing less tiresome.
Morning sunshine splashed across the lip of the opening into the Beachball. McKie put a hand into the light, felt the warmth. He knew he should be moving around, making a poor target of himself, but the presence of the watchers made attack unlikely. Besides, he was tired, drugged to alertness and full of the odd emotions induced by angeret. Movement seemed an empty effort. If they wanted to kill him, they were going to do it. Furuneo's death proved that.
McKie felt a special pang at the thought of Furuneo's death. There had been something admirable and likable about the planetary agent. It had been a fumbling, pointless death - alone here, trapped. It had not advanced their search for Abnethe, only placed the whole conflict on a new footing of violence. It had shown the uncertainty of a single life - and through that life, the vulnerability of all life.
He felt a self-draining hate for Abnethe then. That madwoman!
He fought down a fit of trembling.
From where he sat McKie could see out across the lava shelf to the rocky palisades and a mossy carpeting of sea growth exposed at the cliff base by the retreating tide.
"Suppose we have it all wrong," he said, speaking over his shoulder toward the Caleban. "Suppose we really aren't communicating with each other at all. What if we've just been making noises, assuming a communication content which doesn't exist?"
"I fail of understanding, McKie. The hang doesn't get me."
McKie turned slightly. The Caleban was doing something strange with the air around its position. The oval stage he had seen earlier shimmered once more into view, disappeared. A golden halo appeared at one side of the giant spoon, rose up like a smoke ring, crackled electrically, and vanished.
"We're assuming," McKie said, "that when you say something to me, I respond with meaningful words directly related to your statement - and that you do the same. This may not be the case at all."
"Unlikely."
"So it's unlikely. What are you doing there?"
"Doing?"
"All that activity around you."
"Attempt making self visible on your wave."
"Can you do it?"
"Possible."
A bell-shaped red glow formed above the spoon, stretched into a straight line, resumed its bell curve, began whirling like a child's jump rope.
"What see you?" the Caleban asked.
McKie described the whirling red rope.
"Very odd," the Caleban said. "I flex creativity, and you report visible sensation. You need yet that opening to exterior conditions."
"The open port? It makes it one helluva lot more comfortable in here."
"Comfort - concept self fails to understand."
"Does the opening prevent you from becoming visible?"
"It performs magnetic distraction, no more."
McKie shrugged. "How much more flogging can you take?"
"Explain much."
"You've left the track again," McKie said.
"Correct! That forms achievement, McKie."
"How is it an achievement?"
"Self leaves communicative track, and you achieve awareness of same."
"All right, that's an achievement. Where's Abnethe?"
"Contract . . ."
". . . prohibits revealing her location," McKie completed. "Maybe you can tell me, then, is she jumping, around or remaining on one planet?"
"That helps you locate her?"
"How in fifty-seven hells do I know?"
"Probability smaller than fifty-seven elements," the Caleban said. "Abnethe occupies relatively static position on specific planet."
"But we can't find any pattern to her attacks on you or where they originate," McKie said.
"You cannot see connectives," the Caleban said.
The whirling red rope flickered in and out of existence above the giant spoon. Abruptly, it shifted color to a glowing yellow, vanished.
"You just disappeared," McKie said.
"Not my person visible," the Caleban said.
"How's that?"
"You not seeing person-self."
"That's what I said."
"Not say. Visibility to you not represent sameness of my person. You visible-see effect."
"I wasn't seeing you, eh? That was just some effect you created?"